


The King's New Alphabet

by DaughteroftheSeven (APeculiarPersuasion)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Ganondorf's reign, Gen, I present cultural barriers the fic, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Political Alliances, Short One Shot, Sort Of, This was built on one joke that should not have been dragged out this long but here you go, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29554371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APeculiarPersuasion/pseuds/DaughteroftheSeven
Summary: As a last-ditch effort to protect his people from impending bloodshed, King Zora de Bon has sent a diplomat to King Ganondorf, armed with an exquisitely written agreement to disband from the kingdom in return for near anything the King of Shadows requests. Dacio is less than thrilled to be the one to present in the remains of Hyrule Castle Town, but serves his duty by presenting the treaty. Whether he can secure the Zora’s future rides on his diplomacy and the written word – what could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: King Zora & Ganondorf
Kudos: 3





	The King's New Alphabet

To say the Zora officials had to pull straws for today's assignment was an understatement. The aquatic advisors to King de Bon had nearly battled each other to the death - not that it would have mattered if they had taken each other's lives. The assignment might very well do that.

Four long years had passed since the former King of Hyrule's life had mysteriously ended and his daughter, the Princess Zelda, had even more mysteriously disappeared, leaving only the Gerudo King of Thieves Ganondorf on the throne. Though the Zora had not suffered the same that many Hylians had - most had fled to Kakariko, which was still under protection of the ever-present magic of Sheikah long-past - they were not faring well. The Zora had always relied on Hyrule's standing forces for protection, and left without those alliances, the merfolk hadn't a flipper to swim with. It was all they could do to keep the domain safe from impending monstrous threat. Where there had once been safety in the capitol, now only stood fear. In a desperate last gambit, King de Bon and his advisors had written a document, firmly ending the Zora's affiliation with mainland Hyrule, and putting forth negotiations to create a kingdom solely on Zora sovereignty. The diplomat sent to the town was given rights to barter everything - trade, borders, river rights, everything down to the floorboard, so long as they did not pledge fealty to this new King.

And, after much deliberation and more than a few bad gambling efforts, Dacio stood on the edge of the town. He hadn't left the domain very often even before the coup. He was only forty, hardly out of guppyhood, but options were limited these days... And it wasn't as though Princess Ruto could be put in harm's way. No, he would have to trust himself, his cause, and that his King had given him the right tools.

The offering to Jabu-Jabu couldn't have hurt either...

The young Zora straightened his sash, made peace with his maker, and nodded to his escorts. One could never be too careful in Hyrule Field these days, though they wouldn't be allowed in attendance with the King of Thieves. Uneasy as negotiations already were, any misstep could mean outright war. Proud people though they might be, the Zoras were no idiots - they knew who lost that fight.

Dacio could feel the evil in his bones, ash in the air, soot on the street. The draw bridge was barely held up with one feeble chain which creaked ominously. Nayru help him, he wished the bridge would collapse and he could be swept up in the sweet waters of the Zora river. Even they had become wild and untamed outside of the domain. He wasn't sure even a Zora could swim upstream in the rapids, but he would certainly make the effort if it would get him out of this attendance with certain doom. His heart pounded, his skin felt too dry to breathe, and as he took his last drink before he stepped into the square, he could have sworn he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It could have been the way his eyes curved above water, but there was something pale. Something pale, something with its muscles coiled too tightly that looked ready to leap from the shadows of long-abandoned alleyways at him. If he listened too closely, he could hear groaning - ragged breath of something that froze his blood in his veins. He quickly replaced the cork in his flask, squared his shoulders back, and adjusted the ceremonial messenger's back on his chest. 

One of Ganondorf's first orders had been to receive visitors only through the remains of the city. One could speculate on why this was the case for ages; no one knew what had happened to the King proper, and his body had remained on the castle grounds in burial. Perhaps Ganondorf was planning an attack. Perhaps he had Zelda captive. It could simply have been a demonstration of power. The once great capitol of Hyrule itself in shambles and darkness at the hands of its new King. Whatever the reasoning was, a throne had been constructed in front of what had once supplied the town's precious drinking water. Drinking water supplied by the Zora river, all dried up. Dacio, a sentimental sort, couldn't help but take the crumbling infrastructure of the fountain to be an omen. He swallowed, taking the practiced fifteen steps forward before dropping to his knee, head bowed so far that his fins stood on end. It spared him those eyes that seemed to bore through every creature they surveyed.

He was announced by one of four Hylian attendants that stood at Ganondorf's side. Dacio hadn't known there were any Hylians left in the town, though he did know that several had already pledged loyalty to the Gerudo King. Some had done so out of fear, others out of some enterprising hope to impress their new master. All were cowering before him now, regardless of their initial goals.

"Lord Dacio of the Zora, advisor to King Zora de Bon the third approaches his majesty King Ganondorf of Hyrule, first son of the Gerudo, honored child of Din." The man's voice shook more than he would have cared to admit, but nerves were better than the fog he encountered around the King. The man from the West's powers were beyond the likes of which any had seen in Hyrule, and it was easy for the advisors to lose hours at a time in his presence.

The referenced Ganondorf, who in truth never got tired of his self-given title, flicked an otherwise bored finger from its place on the throne's arm.

"Rise."

Dacio did as he was ordered, shaking down to the very claws on the edge of his fins. His eyes still downcast, he didn't dare look up to catch a glimpse of the Gerudo as he might once have King Rowan. He inhaled, repeating the words he had practiced endlessly for days.

"King de Bon offers his royal greetings, the blessings of Jabu-Jabu, and a proposition to benefit Hy-" he caught himself, though it didn't go unnoticed. They'd had to rewrite the script, as it were. "to benefit all of Gerudo and Zora kind." He managed to pop the carefully drafted proposition, painstakingly copied into Hylian script, already signed by King de Bon and given the stamp of royal approval. Everything was in place as Dacio took another five steps forward, unrolled the scroll above his head, and offered it to the King of Thieves.

Ganondorf tilted his head back, staring down his sharp nose at the agreement. He gazed over the lines for a moment before his golden gaze again fell to the Zora.

"And what do you expect me to do with this gibberish?"

Any spell Ganondorf could have recited would not have frozen Dacio more effectively than that phrase. Did he have the wrong scroll? Had he somehow brought the original copy by mistake? His gaze dared look up, Ganondorf's glowing eyes somehow visible even through the parchment. Though the letters were backwards, this was clearly the finished Hylian agreement. There couldn't have been a misunderstanding, unless...

The Gerudo King of Thieves couldn't read.

Dacio, whose skin was dangerously dry for his kind and whose nerves already had his heart beating thrice its normal rate, couldn't take the thought of having to ad-lib the entire agreement. This pact, as it stood, was more than four pages worth of dense political strategy and posturing. At the best of times, Dacio was no debater. This was perhaps the worst of times - at least, the worst the young Zora had ever faced. It was no surprise, then, that he fainted dead away on the cobblestones before he could even catch the King's faint smirk. His ceremonial cuffs clattered, the scroll falling shortly thereafter.

If any of the royal advisors had the inclination to help the young man, they made no move to act on it. Not so much as a flinch - they had learned better. By force, if necessary. 

The young king waved his full hand this time, leaving the shallow-breathing diplomat where he laid. "Read it."

The same man who had announced Dacio's arrival stepped forward and retrieved the agreement from the smashed ground. He filled his lungs with a steadying breath before beginning to read out the terms outlined by King de Bon.

"In the name of our shared Lady Hylia, and those who deigned fit to create the Land of Kings, we, those favored by Nayru, named as children of the Zora River, hereby put forth the following terms under the new era of Hyrule...:"He'd nearly made it through the first section, outlining the proposed separation from Hyrule in exchange for land, traded goods, water, whatever the King of Shadow deigned fit when he was abruptly cut off by a sharp bark of laughter. He immediately fell silent and stepped back into line, facing forward. Whatever Redead caught his eye was better than he would see otherwise, 

"I'll spare you the breath of finishing that rag. Give it to me." 

The scroll was passed to the next attendant, who, like clockwork, knelt before the King with the scroll offered with open palms. Ganondorf took the treaty, promptly ripped it into no fewer than a thousand pieces, and shoved them all in the ceremonial case it had been delivered in. His gaze then shifted to its unconscious bearer. The smirk returned as his wrist cracked against his palm.

"We will be refusing all conditions, Lord Dacio."

The Zora would wake the next morning to an extremely bruised, but alive, diplomat tied to a skalhorse waiting outside the domain, the shredded remains of the treaty strapped to his chest and a warning in his mouth. The Zora had one month to accept King Ganondorf's terms; unwavering loyalty to the crown. What would happen if they denied this generous offer needed not be said.

In the meantime, however, court had been dismissed. The advisors scattered to whatever safe hole they had carved out for themselves, and Ganondorf to his study. The Zora still vaguely plaguing his thoughts, he thumbed through several manuscripts he had stolen from the King, when that had still been a necessary step to carry out in darkness. Hailing from the desert, he'd had precious little contact with the aquatic race until he had taken the throne. Though brute force worked as well on them as it did any living creature, perhaps he would find something particularly threatening against their kind. After all, the Hylians had a long-standing relationship with the Zora. Their texts should have something to say about Zora weaknesses.

As he skimmed through old Hylian texts, he couldn't help but think back to that idiot boy's expression. It never got old, seeing their "diplomacy" fall on deaf ears. Or perhaps blind eyes.... They never thought to question it, but the party trick never grew old. It was good to be King.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't expect more Gan content from me this was a one off joke I swear to God


End file.
